Perhaps
by Montley
Summary: Lavender Brown detested her job. /For the Quidditch Competition Game 7, total crack pairing weirdness.


**Warning: This is an immensely strange, crack story, and a bit rushed I admit, so it doesn't make much sense, so I should label this a bit OOC, as it really wouldn't work otherwise, as this is TOTAL CRACK and I personally believe wouldn't be plausible.**

**So yes, this is veryveryvery strange**

**This is for the Quidditch League Competition, Game 7, where I was challenged to break up my beautiful Shavender with Lucius/Lavender or Seamus/Lavender. And I suppose I thought Lucius/Lavender to be more...plausible?**

**Prompts: Red nails, "But not all dark places need light, I have to remember that." ―Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, 11."Unbeing dead isn't being alive." ―E.E. Cummings**

Perhaps

By Montley

Lavender Brown detested her job.

It was drab, horrid and depressing, but unfortunately her father was the 'Warden' at Azkaban, and it was the only job she could get: delivering food to the prisoners. All they received was a piece of soggy bread and a small glass of water. It was abuse, but yet, what most of these people had done, was far, far worse.

And she was the one who had to see them and witness their suffering day by day. Every prisoner's rags were far too big, yet their bones would poke out of them. Their hair was long and mangy, and Lavender wanted nothing more to fix it and clean it for them.

She tossed a plate into the final prisoner's cell and began to leave the depressing establishment when a voice snapped.

"You know as our chef, it would be expected of you to perhaps make something more…delectable."

She turned around and stared at the disheveled man, smirking in his cell, his long, blond hair strewn and dirty.

"You don't deserve anything better, and I'm not even a chef," she snapped.

He lifted his eyebrows in recognition. "Oh, I see, just a dirty, little slave girl."

She filled with anger and stormed towards his cell, gripping the bars that separated them. "I'm as much of a slave as you are a free man."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he sounded. "No way to speak to your superior."

"Die," she said and pushed herself off of his cell, striding away, ignoring his taunts.

"Least you have a nice arse!" he shouted back, and she could hear the other prisoners cackling as her cheeks grew hot. If Seamus had heard this…No, it didn't matter if _he _heard this, all it mattered was that _she _did. She's a Gryffindor, and she can defend herself, thus she swiped around and did the classiest thing she could think of. She gave him the finger.

He smirked again.

XXX

"Enjoy your slop," she muttered as she threw his bowl into his cell. He glowered at her, a frown upon his face.

"You're very kind," he bit as he stood and walked towards the bars. She watched him coming closer and found herself unable to move, curious to see what he was going to say next. He was next to the bars and reached his hand out, seizing hers.

"Get off!" she yelled, helplessly trying to pull her arm out of his grip.

"So clean," he murmured. "Red nails, I quite like red nails."

"Wh-what?"

"Fetish of mine," he admitted shamelessly with a careless shrug.

Her eyes widened as he dropped her hand, bruised with his venomous grip. "What the hell!"

"You can leave," he told her, shooing her away.

"No!" she refused, her hands on her hips.

"Don't you have more gruel to serve?"

"You're the last."

"How convenient," he muttered, crawling towards the far, dark corner in his cell.

She glared at him before sitting in front of his cell, the coldness of the prison walking against her spine.

"Why won't you leave?" he asked in an annoyed tone, and Lavender could sense that he was rolling his eyes.

"I won't leave until you apologize for mistreating me with your vile words, from today and yesterday," she stated, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I won't, so you'll be here a while," he stated as he began to taste the gruel Lavender left for him.

"Who are you anyway?" Lavender asked, not giving him a second look, but he did seem familiar, especially with the platinum blond hair and the devilish look in his eyes.

"Lucius Malfoy, and I'm surprised you didn't know, no doubt I've been slandered all across the Daily Prophet, which, no doubt, a chit like you simply absorbs and obsesses over, along with Witch Weekly," he told her, smirking victoriously.

"Least I'm not the one in a cell even though I'd deserve much worse if I were you," she snapped, finally placing this man. He was Draco's father, and a horrid man, servant of the Dark Lord.

"Ah, now you know who I am," he began, and she could hear him scooting closer to her. "And who are you might I ask?"

"Lavender," she said, there was no point in hiding.

"Let me see you," he ordered. "I never got a good look at your face."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I said no."

And then she could feel cold breath tickling her neck as a finger began to stroke her spine. Her eyes widened in alert before she flung herself away.

"Don't touch me!" she ordered. "Or I'll curse you, and I have every right to."

He cackled loudly, but it soon turned into coughs and spits, and she turned and saw a red liquid glistening on the floor.

For a moment, she pitied this lonely, horny man.

Yet, she left again. She didn't need his apology. His suffering was enough.

XXX

Weeks later, Lavender walked into Azkaban with a little vial was in her pocket. She didn't know why she was doing this. Perhaps it was pity? She didn't know, yet Seamus would be displeased with her for acting this way, for a Death Eater of all things! But there was something about this man that she didn't understand.

Perhaps…?

Well, he could sure keep a conversation going. As the days had worn on, their conversation had gotten a little friendlier, though he was still cruel, and loved insulting anyone around him. Though, maybe that was his charm? He even let her brush his hair as he despised what Azkaban had done to it. He was pleased though with the outcome.

Though, she'd leave before the Dementor's came. Perhaps that's why she kept coming. A little happiness in a lonely man's life…maybe? She was able to reassure herself in the fact that Lucius wasn't the worst of the Death Eaters, that many, like his sister-in-law, had done far worse. He was simply a nasty, cold-hearted servant.

Yet, that still didn't sound good.

And what would Seamus think? Wrapping herself into the works of a Death Eater? It was shameful.

Still, she came to his cell with his food, beckoning him towards her like he was a lost puppy.

"I have something for you," she told him.

"My daily gruel, obviously," he muttered as he came closer to her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the vial, reaching her hand inside his cell.

He stared at it blankly, looking from her to the red vial.

"N-nail polish? Why?"

Lavender shrugged, but he swiped it out of her fingertips. He seized her hand, the fear lighting in her eyes, but he bent down and kissed her pale, scarred hand. His grey eyes looked up at her frightened blue ones and he smirked.

"Ah, I finally get a good look at you. You're pretty enough, scars don't really diminish your features," he observed.

Lavender blanched. "W-what?"

"You heard what I said, stupid girl," he snapped, his grip growing tighter. "But thank you I suppose."  
"Y-you're welcome," she muttered, her eyes drifting towards the ground. "I suppose I gave it to you to make you seem less…well…dead."

""Unbeing dead isn't being alive," he drawled, releasing her hand and ducking into a corner of his cell, beginning to unscrew the vial.

"I suppose not," Lavender muttered, sitting down in front of his cell, watching him as he gracefully painted his toenails, admiring his work. She watched him for ten minutes, unsure as to why she wasn't leaving or why her heart was beating madly in her chest. Suddenly, he brought the vial to his mouth and licked it slowly, and she could see him shiver.

'_I should leave, I should leave,'_ she thought to herself, and yet, her legs couldn't stand. He turned around and faced her, inching towards her, her face against the bars of his cell.

He reached his hand out and tucked a few strands of her curly, blonde hair behind her ear.

"You look so much like, Narcissa. You and your red nails," he said to her, his breathing becoming shallower.

"Narcissa?"

"My wife," he said. "But she doesn't visit me anymore. She's too depressed."

"Oh."

His face inched towards her and his lips pressed against her cheek.

And Seamus was gone.

Traded in for this crazy man, who's cruel and invidious, but perhaps, that's what Lavender wanted.

XXX

It's been years.

But now…

Lavender loves her job.

Because of one man, one man who's touch is so intoxicating, and whose red nails scratch upon her back.

No one in Azkaban cared that she would steal the keys to his cell to join him, but never let him leave.

Not even her father, who never left his office.

And she knew that not all dark places needed light, rather the light places needed a little darkness.


End file.
